State-owned Vietnam Construction Import-Export Corp., or Vinaconex, will offer shares in the company worth VND650 billion ($40.6 million) via auctions next month, a Vinaconex official said Wednesday. "Vinaconex will start selling its shares for the first time after it sold shares in its units in the last few years," the official from Vinaconex’s headquarters in Hanoi told Dow Jones Newswires.

The company plans to sell all of the shares to company staff and domestic investors, he added. In a second offer, which will be in early 2007, Vinaconex will sell shares valued at VND600 billion to foreigners, he added. Although the exact size of the combined stake which will be sold hasn’t been confirmed, the company has said the government intends to maintain a minimum holding of 51%.

Vinaconex plans to list its shares on the country’s bourse in late 2007 or 2008, the official said. Vietnam’s stock market was launched in July 2000, and has 48 listed firms with a combined market capitalization of $2.93 billion. Three of those listed are construction firms.
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